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CHAPTER XVIII. CAMBRIA STEEL COMPANY--ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE PRES- ENT GREAT CORPORATION.      The Cambria Steel Company, formerly the Cambria Iron Company, the leading manufacturing industry in the city of Johnstown, and which has been such since 1853, is of so great importance, that its early history and a description of the manner in which it was originated, should be recorded.      The Pennsylvania system of transportation, consisting in part of the canal from Johnstown to Pittsburg and the Old Portage railroad over the mountains from Johnstown to Hollidaysburg, was completed and ready for business in 1834. Its opening was a national event, and it seemed probable that business would center around Johnstown.       In 1833, George Shryock King, then in the twenty-fourth year of his age, was a merchant in Mercersburg, Franklin county, and his attention was drawn to Johnstown by the public works. In that year he came here, looked over the situation, and, concluding it was going to be a better place for business than Mercersburg, the following year transferred his stock of merchandise to Johnstown. He bought the lot on the northeast corner of Main and Franklin streets, which then extended up Main street so as to include the Hamilton lot, and erected a store building on the Hamilton portion, at the same time purchasing for a residence the lot later occupied by Dr. S. M. Swan, and several other lots from Abraham Morrison.       Mr. King opened his store and continued in business until 1840, when he sold out to John K. and William L. Shryock, with the intention of going to Pittsburg and engaging in the wholesale dry-goods trade but the effect of the panic of 1837 was so serious that it changed his course. This was the real beginning of the Cambria Iron Company. This panic was the same as all other business stagnations, bringing misery until revival came, and of course there was a scarcity of money as a medium of exchange. It is stated that there was actually no money here. Probably two thousand people dwelt in the community, and Mr. King came to the conclusion that if some

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